Hudson, Ed

SECRET CITY FILM COLLECTION
ORAL HISTORY OF ED HUDSON
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
February 16, 2005
MR. MCDANIEL: You can just kind of chat, and talk a little bit, you just talk to me, look at me. How did you end up in Oak Ridge, tell me that story.
MR. HUDSON: Well, I interviewed with Eastman Kodak in December of '42, and in the spring of ‘43 I had asked, work continue, see if I could, and there wasn't anything available, and all the sudden, this Oak Ridge project got started. So I went to Kingsport, and went out to work, March 29 of '43, and they gave me a badge number, 67. Then they said, “Can you travel?” and we said, “Sure.” They said, “Can't get you out on Tuesday, but we can get you out on Wednesday to California.” I was sent to the University of California for five months before I came back to Oak Ridge. MR. MCDANIEL: What were you doing, before you went to work for Tennessee Eastman.
MR. HUDSON: I had just finished school at the University of Tennessee in Electrical Engineering. MR. MCDANIEL: Where were you from originally?
MR. HUDSON: Sequachee Valley, a little town in Whitwell. MR. MCDANIEL: Whitwell, now is that north west of Chattanooga?
MR. HUDSON: It's sort of north, I don't know whether it's much west or not. It's basically on the way if you go from Chattanooga to Nashville, a little bit off.
MR. MCDANIEL: Isn't that where that paper plant is?
MR. HUDSON: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: I hadn't heard of it until that happened.
MR. HUDSON: It's a small mining town, small farming town.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you went to California, how long did you stay out there, about five months?
MR. HUDSON: Yes. And we were the pilot plant for the calutron process in Oak Ridge, it was being developed there at the University of California. MR. MCDANIEL: So what did you do, out there?
MR. HUDSON: Well, I was out there basically, I was being helping with the field measurement system for measuring the calutron here in Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you helped them to kind of develop that?
MR. HUDSON: Well, I was watching them, I was helping where I could, I guess. And then we came back to Oak Ridge. The California people had clearance to work, where the Stone-Webster people are still working and the Eastman people didn't, so it was two weeks later before I got in to work with them. By then, they had equipment set up ready to start operating.
MR. MCDANIEL: So what did you do when you actually started working on the calutrons?
MR. HUDSON: Well, we measured the magnetic field on the calutrons so we could determine its characteristics for separating the isotopes.
MR. MCDANIEL: How did you measure?
MR. HUDSON: Well, they had search coils and flip coils and equipment where it was set up to take the data and record it?
MR. MCDANIEL: How precise was that kind of work?
MR. HUDSON: Well, at that time, it was not as precise as it was later with the neucroflux meter. But it was (pause) because the best galvonometer they had to store the (pause) information from the galvonometer reflection, and I don't know what the percentage would be. MR. MCDANIEL: So were you responsible for a certain building or a certain...
MR. HUDSON: No, not really, I was just one of, well I did have about 10 people that were assigned to me at the time for Eastman people, but temporarily. But the California group was doing the directing of what to do, and we were just helping. MR. MCDANIEL: Were the calutrons actually running at this time? MR. HUDSON: Oh no, they were just finishing the building and getting the magnetic field turned on before they started operating.
MR. MCDANIEL: What did you do after they started operating, or did you go from building to building? MR. HUDSON: No, once we got the characteristics to one of them, we didn't worry, they were all similar. Later, after CA group returned to CA, I was left to obtain data for the magnetization curve for the track magnet. Stone and Webster raised the current a little bit, and I'd get a data point, then they'd shut down and do something, and raise it again. This went over for about a couple of weeks. I was here up to 16 hours a day, and during that time I was making 95 cents an hour as an engineer. I was having to be getting paid extra time, so immediately I was on monthly pay with no overtime.
MR. MCDANIEL: I guess so. So tell me about, what was it like living here. When you first came, were you single, were you married?
MR. HUDSON: No, I was single. We lived in the dormitory when I first moved in (pauses) 3 or 4, it's the men's dormitory up on the hill. Then later I moved to N-7. But, that's when they separated from the Eastman people from the Kodak people, so the Y-12 people and the X-10 people wouldn't mingle together.
MR. MCDANIEL: Why is that?
MR. HUDSON: Well, they didn't want the right hand to know what the left hand was doing. So whatever X-10 was doing was their problem, and whatever Y -12 was doing was theirs, and they didn't want communication.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, how old were you when you came here?
MR. HUDSON: I was 26.
MR. MCDANIEL: Twenty-six, so you stayed here all during the war.
MR. HUDSON: Yeah, I was here for 44 years.
MR. MCDANIEL: So during the war, during the calutron process, you basically worked on all the calutrons.
MR. HUDSON: Well, I was (very hesitant/pause) working with Dr. Ken McLeese, who was 23 and soon became 24 when I started to work with him. We worked on the magnet current regulators for the system, which was still in use, I don't know, decades later. Until the machines were shut down. MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me a little bit about the calutron process. I've had people talk about how they work, but tell me a little bit about the magnetic portion of the calutron and how that worked.
MR. HUDSON: Well, they had shims in the, well, it's the spectrometer, 180 degree spectrometer. As the beam came around, it had shims in the (pause) in there to help focus the beam onto the collectors near the end. And along that line, everything was coded, and the heaters were H, and arch was J, and so forth. It turned out that the McCleese that I was working with was one at California that had these on a sheet of paper. He designated what they were and they were used over the years, coded, for what was going on.
MR. MCDANIEL: Why did the arch have to bend 180 degrees, why couldn't it just go in a straight line?
MR. HUDSON: You wouldn't get any separation. One mass goes 235 in one radius and 238 in another radius.
MR. MCDANIEL: And when it goes up 180 degrees, I guess gravity would be playing a role, wouldn't it?
MR. HUDSON: Well, not gravity. Gravity's incidental to it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Ok, but the electromagnet played the role in separating them, is that correct?
MR. HUDSON: Yes, yes, the magnetic field bent the charge particles and determined where they were going. MR. MCDANIEL: Because the U-238 was heavier or lighter?
MR. HUDSON: Well, they make 238's 3 parts heavier than the 235.
MR. MCDANIEL: So after the war, what did you do? MR. HUDSON: Well, we got into the cyclotron business. We started building, starting about in ‘48, working on a 22-inch cyclotron in one of the calutron tanks since they were being shut down. A certain group of eight or ten people probably working with it, and none of them had seen a cyclotron except Dr. Livingston, who was heading the group. But we built that one, and later we built an 86” 22 MABE proton machine. And later, an AVIN machine, in another one of the buildings, and then finally, the Oak Ridge cyclotron in X-10 for the, which is still being used today. MR. MCDANIEL: What about, did you meet your wife here?
MR. HUDSON: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me about that.
MR. HUDSON: Well, (long pause), I was in the cafeteria, as many people were, all the time, who were single, and at a table. A classmate from UT in my physics class says they're looking for a place. My wife was with the lady, that I was in school with, and they came over and sat down, and introduced us, and that's how we learned. MR. MCDANIEL: That's how you met each other.
MR. HUDSON: She was a school teacher here.
MR. MCDANIEL: Where did she come from?
MR. HUDSON: Well, she's originally from Illinois, but she graduated from the University of Minnesota.
MR. MCDANIEL: And how did they approve her? MR. HUDSON: Well, they had people going out, the school people, getting teachers to come in. It must have been six or eight of them coming in from Minnesota, came down for the school system.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, what was it like being 26 and, you know, you're working hard, was there very much to do? What did you do in your spare time?
MR. HUDSON: Well, I guess we spent a lot of time in that cafeteria, and also they had a rec hall, and oh, music.
MR. MCDANIEL: Which cafeteria was it that you went to mostly? MR. HUDSON: Well, it's the one up in Jackson Square, that was the main center of town to start with.
MR. MCDANIEL: What was the food like?
MR. HUDSON: Well, I guess, you ate it. It wasn't too bad.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you ever get sick from it?
MR. HUDSON: No, never did.
MR. MCDANIEL: What do you remember about when they announced, when the bomb was dropped? What do you remember about that day?
MR. HUDSON: Well, it turned out that I happened to be in Rochester on vacation on that day, and visiting. We stopped by for Eastman Kodak where I would have gone to work had I not come to Oak Ridge, and it was announced. But I was aware a month earlier that they'd tested it, so I knew it was expected, so it wasn't anything new.
MR. MCDANIEL: How did you come to know that they'd tested it?
MR. HUDSON: Just the information.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is there anything else you want to tell me about, talk about, anything you remember, any stories? MR. HUDSON: Well, let's see, what we want to start with. Well, when we went on the train to CA for example. Civilians got two meals a day and Army boys got three meals a day. We got up to eat breakfast as soon as we could, and we'd leave breakfast as late as we could, then we'd have dinner, so. MR. MCDANIEL: Go ahead.
MR. HUDSON: In California, there was concern about how many spare vacuum tubes we were going to need for the whole process. A fellow by the name of V.C. Hall from Eastman, who'd come down from Eastman Kodak said he remembered from 1938 about June or July, there was an article in Bell Lab about replacement parts required for vacuum system. After due process got clearance for the lab to go over and get the article. Consequently that was the article that helped determine the number of spare parts that was needed for the vacuum system for the whole plant to run. MR. MCDANIEL: Anything else you can remember?
MR. HUDSON: Well, there's little incidents, like, for example, we were up in the radiation lab. Of course, it overlooks the Bay. We were doing something one night when were, and somebody pulled the shade and the whole shade fell down. I tell you, there was a lot of clamoring to get that shade back up, because that's right where all the Japanese had dropped shells over in the Bay next, close to San Francisco.
MR. MCDANIEL: What about Oak Ridge, remember any stories or anything you can talk about?
MR. HUDSON: Well, it was mainly work most of the time. And...
MR. MCDANIEL: How many people did you work with/work around in a regular day? MR. HUDSON: Well, our group was, we had the, I was with the physics group and we were developing equipment for the thing. So our group was relatively small, although we had contact over the whole plant area. It turned out, I don't know whether you noticed, but we had roman numerals on the badges, and a V is where you're supposed to know everything that's going on, basically, and a IV is knowing everything but production. That's the one I had, a IV. They had III's, II's, and on down. A lot of people weren't told much of anything. Which reminds me, when we were in CA, when we were first out there, we got badges, and they put a big red X on it. That was to say, “Don't tell them anything,” and we were out there trying to learn. So after a couple of weeks, we got those badges changed so they, we had access to the information that was going on that were needed.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, anything else? I think I'm about through.
MR. HUDSON: Well, I think that pretty well covers my part of what was going on. [End of Interview]

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SECRET CITY FILM COLLECTION
ORAL HISTORY OF ED HUDSON
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
February 16, 2005
MR. MCDANIEL: You can just kind of chat, and talk a little bit, you just talk to me, look at me. How did you end up in Oak Ridge, tell me that story.
MR. HUDSON: Well, I interviewed with Eastman Kodak in December of '42, and in the spring of ‘43 I had asked, work continue, see if I could, and there wasn't anything available, and all the sudden, this Oak Ridge project got started. So I went to Kingsport, and went out to work, March 29 of '43, and they gave me a badge number, 67. Then they said, “Can you travel?” and we said, “Sure.” They said, “Can't get you out on Tuesday, but we can get you out on Wednesday to California.” I was sent to the University of California for five months before I came back to Oak Ridge. MR. MCDANIEL: What were you doing, before you went to work for Tennessee Eastman.
MR. HUDSON: I had just finished school at the University of Tennessee in Electrical Engineering. MR. MCDANIEL: Where were you from originally?
MR. HUDSON: Sequachee Valley, a little town in Whitwell. MR. MCDANIEL: Whitwell, now is that north west of Chattanooga?
MR. HUDSON: It's sort of north, I don't know whether it's much west or not. It's basically on the way if you go from Chattanooga to Nashville, a little bit off.
MR. MCDANIEL: Isn't that where that paper plant is?
MR. HUDSON: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: I hadn't heard of it until that happened.
MR. HUDSON: It's a small mining town, small farming town.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you went to California, how long did you stay out there, about five months?
MR. HUDSON: Yes. And we were the pilot plant for the calutron process in Oak Ridge, it was being developed there at the University of California. MR. MCDANIEL: So what did you do, out there?
MR. HUDSON: Well, I was out there basically, I was being helping with the field measurement system for measuring the calutron here in Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you helped them to kind of develop that?
MR. HUDSON: Well, I was watching them, I was helping where I could, I guess. And then we came back to Oak Ridge. The California people had clearance to work, where the Stone-Webster people are still working and the Eastman people didn't, so it was two weeks later before I got in to work with them. By then, they had equipment set up ready to start operating.
MR. MCDANIEL: So what did you do when you actually started working on the calutrons?
MR. HUDSON: Well, we measured the magnetic field on the calutrons so we could determine its characteristics for separating the isotopes.
MR. MCDANIEL: How did you measure?
MR. HUDSON: Well, they had search coils and flip coils and equipment where it was set up to take the data and record it?
MR. MCDANIEL: How precise was that kind of work?
MR. HUDSON: Well, at that time, it was not as precise as it was later with the neucroflux meter. But it was (pause) because the best galvonometer they had to store the (pause) information from the galvonometer reflection, and I don't know what the percentage would be. MR. MCDANIEL: So were you responsible for a certain building or a certain...
MR. HUDSON: No, not really, I was just one of, well I did have about 10 people that were assigned to me at the time for Eastman people, but temporarily. But the California group was doing the directing of what to do, and we were just helping. MR. MCDANIEL: Were the calutrons actually running at this time? MR. HUDSON: Oh no, they were just finishing the building and getting the magnetic field turned on before they started operating.
MR. MCDANIEL: What did you do after they started operating, or did you go from building to building? MR. HUDSON: No, once we got the characteristics to one of them, we didn't worry, they were all similar. Later, after CA group returned to CA, I was left to obtain data for the magnetization curve for the track magnet. Stone and Webster raised the current a little bit, and I'd get a data point, then they'd shut down and do something, and raise it again. This went over for about a couple of weeks. I was here up to 16 hours a day, and during that time I was making 95 cents an hour as an engineer. I was having to be getting paid extra time, so immediately I was on monthly pay with no overtime.
MR. MCDANIEL: I guess so. So tell me about, what was it like living here. When you first came, were you single, were you married?
MR. HUDSON: No, I was single. We lived in the dormitory when I first moved in (pauses) 3 or 4, it's the men's dormitory up on the hill. Then later I moved to N-7. But, that's when they separated from the Eastman people from the Kodak people, so the Y-12 people and the X-10 people wouldn't mingle together.
MR. MCDANIEL: Why is that?
MR. HUDSON: Well, they didn't want the right hand to know what the left hand was doing. So whatever X-10 was doing was their problem, and whatever Y -12 was doing was theirs, and they didn't want communication.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, how old were you when you came here?
MR. HUDSON: I was 26.
MR. MCDANIEL: Twenty-six, so you stayed here all during the war.
MR. HUDSON: Yeah, I was here for 44 years.
MR. MCDANIEL: So during the war, during the calutron process, you basically worked on all the calutrons.
MR. HUDSON: Well, I was (very hesitant/pause) working with Dr. Ken McLeese, who was 23 and soon became 24 when I started to work with him. We worked on the magnet current regulators for the system, which was still in use, I don't know, decades later. Until the machines were shut down. MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me a little bit about the calutron process. I've had people talk about how they work, but tell me a little bit about the magnetic portion of the calutron and how that worked.
MR. HUDSON: Well, they had shims in the, well, it's the spectrometer, 180 degree spectrometer. As the beam came around, it had shims in the (pause) in there to help focus the beam onto the collectors near the end. And along that line, everything was coded, and the heaters were H, and arch was J, and so forth. It turned out that the McCleese that I was working with was one at California that had these on a sheet of paper. He designated what they were and they were used over the years, coded, for what was going on.
MR. MCDANIEL: Why did the arch have to bend 180 degrees, why couldn't it just go in a straight line?
MR. HUDSON: You wouldn't get any separation. One mass goes 235 in one radius and 238 in another radius.
MR. MCDANIEL: And when it goes up 180 degrees, I guess gravity would be playing a role, wouldn't it?
MR. HUDSON: Well, not gravity. Gravity's incidental to it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Ok, but the electromagnet played the role in separating them, is that correct?
MR. HUDSON: Yes, yes, the magnetic field bent the charge particles and determined where they were going. MR. MCDANIEL: Because the U-238 was heavier or lighter?
MR. HUDSON: Well, they make 238's 3 parts heavier than the 235.
MR. MCDANIEL: So after the war, what did you do? MR. HUDSON: Well, we got into the cyclotron business. We started building, starting about in ‘48, working on a 22-inch cyclotron in one of the calutron tanks since they were being shut down. A certain group of eight or ten people probably working with it, and none of them had seen a cyclotron except Dr. Livingston, who was heading the group. But we built that one, and later we built an 86” 22 MABE proton machine. And later, an AVIN machine, in another one of the buildings, and then finally, the Oak Ridge cyclotron in X-10 for the, which is still being used today. MR. MCDANIEL: What about, did you meet your wife here?
MR. HUDSON: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me about that.
MR. HUDSON: Well, (long pause), I was in the cafeteria, as many people were, all the time, who were single, and at a table. A classmate from UT in my physics class says they're looking for a place. My wife was with the lady, that I was in school with, and they came over and sat down, and introduced us, and that's how we learned. MR. MCDANIEL: That's how you met each other.
MR. HUDSON: She was a school teacher here.
MR. MCDANIEL: Where did she come from?
MR. HUDSON: Well, she's originally from Illinois, but she graduated from the University of Minnesota.
MR. MCDANIEL: And how did they approve her? MR. HUDSON: Well, they had people going out, the school people, getting teachers to come in. It must have been six or eight of them coming in from Minnesota, came down for the school system.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, what was it like being 26 and, you know, you're working hard, was there very much to do? What did you do in your spare time?
MR. HUDSON: Well, I guess we spent a lot of time in that cafeteria, and also they had a rec hall, and oh, music.
MR. MCDANIEL: Which cafeteria was it that you went to mostly? MR. HUDSON: Well, it's the one up in Jackson Square, that was the main center of town to start with.
MR. MCDANIEL: What was the food like?
MR. HUDSON: Well, I guess, you ate it. It wasn't too bad.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you ever get sick from it?
MR. HUDSON: No, never did.
MR. MCDANIEL: What do you remember about when they announced, when the bomb was dropped? What do you remember about that day?
MR. HUDSON: Well, it turned out that I happened to be in Rochester on vacation on that day, and visiting. We stopped by for Eastman Kodak where I would have gone to work had I not come to Oak Ridge, and it was announced. But I was aware a month earlier that they'd tested it, so I knew it was expected, so it wasn't anything new.
MR. MCDANIEL: How did you come to know that they'd tested it?
MR. HUDSON: Just the information.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is there anything else you want to tell me about, talk about, anything you remember, any stories? MR. HUDSON: Well, let's see, what we want to start with. Well, when we went on the train to CA for example. Civilians got two meals a day and Army boys got three meals a day. We got up to eat breakfast as soon as we could, and we'd leave breakfast as late as we could, then we'd have dinner, so. MR. MCDANIEL: Go ahead.
MR. HUDSON: In California, there was concern about how many spare vacuum tubes we were going to need for the whole process. A fellow by the name of V.C. Hall from Eastman, who'd come down from Eastman Kodak said he remembered from 1938 about June or July, there was an article in Bell Lab about replacement parts required for vacuum system. After due process got clearance for the lab to go over and get the article. Consequently that was the article that helped determine the number of spare parts that was needed for the vacuum system for the whole plant to run. MR. MCDANIEL: Anything else you can remember?
MR. HUDSON: Well, there's little incidents, like, for example, we were up in the radiation lab. Of course, it overlooks the Bay. We were doing something one night when were, and somebody pulled the shade and the whole shade fell down. I tell you, there was a lot of clamoring to get that shade back up, because that's right where all the Japanese had dropped shells over in the Bay next, close to San Francisco.
MR. MCDANIEL: What about Oak Ridge, remember any stories or anything you can talk about?
MR. HUDSON: Well, it was mainly work most of the time. And...
MR. MCDANIEL: How many people did you work with/work around in a regular day? MR. HUDSON: Well, our group was, we had the, I was with the physics group and we were developing equipment for the thing. So our group was relatively small, although we had contact over the whole plant area. It turned out, I don't know whether you noticed, but we had roman numerals on the badges, and a V is where you're supposed to know everything that's going on, basically, and a IV is knowing everything but production. That's the one I had, a IV. They had III's, II's, and on down. A lot of people weren't told much of anything. Which reminds me, when we were in CA, when we were first out there, we got badges, and they put a big red X on it. That was to say, “Don't tell them anything,” and we were out there trying to learn. So after a couple of weeks, we got those badges changed so they, we had access to the information that was going on that were needed.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, anything else? I think I'm about through.
MR. HUDSON: Well, I think that pretty well covers my part of what was going on. [End of Interview]